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Straight Line Alphabet 



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LettEring in the DradES 



by 

Miltnn Clauser 



Copyright, 1916 

by 

MILTON CLAUSER 

All rights reserved 



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DEC 30 1916 



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INTRODUCTION 

Mechanical drawing classes in the high school used to spend two or four 
hours a week for several months on lettering. Since manual training and art 
courses have been introduced into the schools it has been the tendency to ex- 
pect grade teachers to accomplish, in a few minutes a week with grade chil- 
dren, what heretofore was not done any too well by the more mature high 
school pupils in a more liberal time-allotment. If high school teachers found 
free-hand lettering such a difficult task, it is just likely that we are expecting 
from grade children that which is beyond their capabilities. 

If titles on drawings and construction work are put in script, very many 



drawings, otherwise good, are spoiled by weak penmanship ; and, titles written 
on drawings do not look well even i£ the penmanship is good. Some style of 
lettering for the grades seems essential even if the draftsman's free-hand 
lettering is too difficult. Yet, at first thot, it seems a waste of time to teach 
one alphabet in the grades and another in the high school. 

It is the object of this pamphlet to suggest an alphabet simple enough 
to be used even in the lower grades, yet such, that it could be made to grow 
into the free-hand alphabet used by the draftsman; an alphabet whose letters, 
tho made of straight lines, are of such shapes that their similarity to the drafts- 
man's alphabet will be a very considerable help later on. (See pages 7 and 11.) 

After having made the alphabet, it was noticed that very slight additions 
would change it into quite artistic alphabets for art work. (See page 16.) 



Straight-Line Alphabet 

While primarily intended for manual training and drawing classes, 
the alphabet here presented can be used in all the grades. As none but 
straight lines are used in making it, in the kindergarten the letters can be 
built with sticks, pegs or blocks. In the first grade they could be built with 
strips of paper and later on cut out with the scissors. In the second grade 
the capitals could be drawn on the blackboard and on paper. And by the time 
pupils reach the fourth grade they could make both the capitals and the small 
letters. In the upper grades pupils might be shown how slight changes in 
the shape of additional lines to these letters might help their artistic effect. 

Tools Used 

These letters can be made free-hand in the lower grades; but, after they 
have acquired some knowledge of the shapes of the letters and can spare some 



attention for the rule it were well if they used the rule in making them. The 
best results are obtained, however, if the lettering is taught by the use of the 
following tools: — Drawing board, T-square, 45-degree triangle, 60-degree tri- 
angle, rule, thumb tacks and an M. H. pencil. 

How Tools Should Be Used 

Use the T-square with the head at the left end of the drawing board only. 
Hold it tightly against the board so that the head, for its entire length, will 
be in contact with the drawing board. From the very beginning, pupils should 
be taught to form the habit of shifting the T-square with the left hand only ; 
and, when doing so the farther end of the blade should not be touched by the 
right hand. If the teacher will watch carefully that this is done during the first 
few lessons, the matter of handling the drawing set will soon be acquired. In 
drawing horizontal lines the T-square is used. Both T-square and triangle are 
used for vertical lines. 



To fasten the drawing paper, tack one upper corner; then, holding the 
T-square with its head tightly against the left end of the board, move the paper 
so that its lower edge will be in line with the T-square. Then tack the other 
upper corner. 

Lettering Staff 

Three lines are used in making the lettering staff. It will be seen that 
the upper one determines the height of the capitals, while the middle line 
serves as a guide in determining the height of the small letters. Teachers 
should call the attention of the pupils to the fact that after the letters are 
made no one ever again will want to see these guide lines. On the other hand, 
it is hard to see the letters in a heavy staff. Therefore the staff lines should 
be made exceedingly fine 



and light. It were well if 



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do any lettering in any but light staffs. If the staff is light and the letters heavy, 
the lead in the lines of the staff will be "on top of the wool" of the paper and the 
lead in the lines of the letters will be in the bottom of a groove. This makes 
it possible, by drawing an eraser lightly over the guide lines, to erase the staffs 
without harming the letters. 

The staffs should be made so as to make the capitals 5/16 of an inch and the 
small letters 3/16 of an inch high. When beginning the lettering in the prim- 
ary grades it were better to make these staffs larger. The capitals 
might be made 5/8 of an inch and the small letters 3/8 of an inch, or they 
might even be 5/4 and 3/4 of an inch, respectively. While for blackboard work 
the staffs might be made with 5-inch spaces for capitals and 3-inch spaces for 
small letters. Where very small letters are required these spaces might be 
made 3/16 and 2/16 of an inch. 



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Plate 1 



Use the 45-degree angle in making the N, X, Z, &, 4, x and z. 

Use the 60-degree angle in making the A, M, Q, V, Y, 5, 7, v, w and y. 

Use the 45-degree angle and the 60-degree angle in making the K. 

Use the 30-degree angle and the 60-degree angle in making the k. 

Add the 30-degree angle and the 45-degree angle when making the R and W. 

Notice the projections, called serifs, on the D, G, J, a, f, g, j, m, n and u. 




To get a title in the middle of a sheet, count the number of letters in the 
title — regard the spaces between words as if they were additional letters — and 
print the middle letter first, then print forwards and backwards from that 
letter. One can print a word so as to have it end exactly, say half an inch 
from the right edge of a sheet, by printing the word backwards. 

Draw all the vertical lines for the letters of a word or phrase first. In 
this way all the horizontal lines for the 
letters can be made with three adjust- 
ments of the T-square. If one letter at a 
time is made the T-square would have to be 
adjusted three times for almost every letter. 
This not only takes more time but brings 
them out of alinement. 

9 



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Some Helpful Suggestions 

Think before you make a line instead of afterwards . If you should look 
over the work of almost any mechanical drawing class you would find that 
some of the pupils are able to accomplish three or four times as much as 
others; and — tho contrary to what one had a legitimate right to expect — 
those who do the best work are done first. This efficiency results not so 
much because of individual skill or effort as because of the method of attack. 
A careful examination will show that it is due more than anything else to 
this thinking before making a line. 

One word neatly done is educational. A whole page of staffs and abstract 
letters is a bore. Lack of appreciation of this fact usually results in careless 
habits followed up by allopathic doses, with a consequent sense of inability, 
and lack of interest in, and respect for the work. 

Get the habit of making a line by one stroke . The boy who thinks before 
he makes a line has no occasion to run twice over a line. In this straight line 
lettering you can usually pick out every line that was made with more than 



one stroke. A double line usually looks worse than a weak one. There is 
only one way to correct a weak line and that is to erase it completely and 
make a new one. 

You can not make the fine staff lines with a dull pencil. 

Notice how these letters adapt themselves to the free-hand letters made 
by most draftsmen. 
Pupils will not have 
to unlearn anything. 
After they have 
used this alphabet 
in the grades, they 
will have acquired a 
good idea of the 
general shapes of 
the letters while 
they will not have 



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the careless habits that usually result from giving the free-hand lettering too 
early. This knowledge and practice will help them very materially in their 
high school lettering. There is a gradual growth from the straight-line let- 
ters (Plate 1) thru the rounded form (Plate 2) to the rounded slant letters 
(Plate 3) employed by the draftsman. After pupils have acquired a knowl- 
edge of the forms and some skill in the making of these straight-line letters, 
they might be shown how the mere rounding of these letters will result in 
the free-hand alphabets shown in the plates on pages 12 and 14. 



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These free-hand alphabets 
should be made by "strok- 
ing" the letters. This simply 
consists in making all lines 
in the letters with down 
strokes and strokes toward 
the right. With the pen, 



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Plate 3 



up-strokes and strokes toward the left are likely to blot and usually result in 
narrower lines than those made by the down strokes and the strokes toward 
the right. Pupils should be shown why these letters are drawn and not writ- 
ten. For, if they acquire the habit of stroking them from the very beginning, 
they need not learn all over again when they come to inking them. 

Notice also, how the art work in the grades may be enriched by this straight- 
line alphabet. Quite different effects may be produced by merely doubling the 
vertical lines (4), by adding the little lines called serifs, to the tops and bot- 
toms of such letters as the letters of any printed page would suggest (5), by 
both doubling the lines and adding the serifs (6) or by making the slant 
alphabets (7, 8, 9, and 10) shown on the pages following. These slant letters 
can be made by dropping the right end of the T-square for about one-fifth of 
its length while making the vertical lines of alphabets 1, 4, 5, and 6. This 
position of the T-square can be fixed by putting a thumb-tack in the board 

15 



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Fig. 7 



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above each end of the T-square blade. They can, however, be more readily 
made with a triangle. While the inclined letters usually slope at an angle of 
67 to 70 degrees from the base line, a triangle with an angle anywhere from 
65 to 80 degrees will serve very well. One can easily make such a triangle. In 
a right triangle whose base is one-fifth of its altitude the larger acute angle 
is 78+ degrees; and if the base is two-fifths of the altitude the angle is 
68+ degrees. 



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Straight Line Alphabet for Lettering in the grades by Milton Clauser. 

Price, 25 cents a piece. 
$ 2.50 per dozen. 
$15.00 per hundred. 

Alphabets in this book printed separately from the text, cardboard, 3|x7 inches, 
can be had at the following prices : 

$ 1.00 per hundred. 
$ 7.00 per thousand. 
$60.00 per ten thousand. 

Order alphabets by numbers on pages 11 to 20. 

Address MILTON CLAUSER 

1224 Princeton Ave. 
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 

21 



